The present invention relates in general to aerodynamic and thermal wall boundary layer control of aerodynamic airfoils, in particular to application of such to aircraft, turbo engines and automotive components, especially, but not exclusively, to isolated airfoils or fuselage parts, wings, flaps and blades, casing, end walls and liners of turbo engines in order to increase the efficiency and to improve off design performance.
As well known, a boundary layer develops on a wall of a body as soon as it interacts with a flow stream. The aerodynamic performance (lift or loading and drag) and the thermal performance (heat exchange efficiency and working temperature of the component) on nominal and off design conditions depend on the properties and the structure of the boundary layer.
The purpose of the boundary layer control, also known as BLC (Boundary Layer Control), is to affect the flow by influencing the structure of the boundary layer, in order to increase the efficiency, the loading and the stage pressure ratio of turbo engines and off design performance of isolated airfoils and bodies.
The main advantages of boundary layer control are:
to delay transition from a laminar to a turbulent boundary layer and thus reduce skin friction and heat transfer;
to prevent or delay boundary layer separation and thereby increase the allowable blade or airfoil loading and range of angles of attack;
to cancel or attenuate flow disturbances in transonic flows.
Such effects can be achieved either by suction of the boundary layer in the regions of interest, or by injection of a working fluid which in turn can be either the same as the main flow or a different one (binary boundary layer).
Boundary layer control by means of a suction method appears, in general, to be the more efficient, but the injection method would be necessary for its use in conjunction with air cooling of turbine blades.
Concerning aircraft or automotive applications, the suction area may be applied either at wing leading edges or at the forward edge of the trailing edge flaps.
Concerning turbo engines, as in the case of isolated airfoils, it is possible to increase the blade loading considerably by the use of boundary layer control. This increase is achieved by prevention or delay of flow separation and the resultant stalling of the blades, and the greatest gain can be obtained if the blades are specially designed for the use of the boundary layer control so as to maintain high loading over most of the blade section. By use of boundary layer control a higher blade loading can be obtained for a given inlet Mach number without exceeding a given Mach number on the blade. In fact the blade can be designed to have a uniformly high Mach number over a larger portion of the upper surface of the blade without flow separation. For the same reason, higher inlet Mach numbers can be used with a given loading without exceeding a given Mach number on the blade. The gain resulting from maintaining a high velocity over a larger portion of the upper surface may be materially reduced, however, by increased velocity over the lower surface as a result of the practical requirement of thicker blades for boundary layer control.
With a conventional blading, the maximum pressure ratio per stage in a multistage compressor is obtained by increasing the axial velocity component and maintaining an essentially symmetrical velocity diagram throughout in order to assure the maximum allowable Mach number on all blade elements. This increase in the axial velocity component can only be obtained by using a sufficiently large taper for the annular passage to more than compensate for the reduction in axial velocity due to the increase in density. The use of taper large enough to maintain constant relative Mach numbers, however, leads to very small passages in the later stages of high pressure-ratio compressors and to high exit velocities. The resultant narrow annular passage tends to produce low efficiencies in the later stages and the high exit velocities either produce large exit losses or require long diffusers. For these reasons, most commercial compressors use much less taper than required to produce constant Mach number and consequently obtain relatively low Mach numbers and pressure ratios in the later stages.
The drop-off in pressure ratio in the later stages due to this decrease in relative Mach number in the wider passage could be prevented, however, if the blade loading could be increased in these stages. Because of the lower Mach numbers, it should be possible to use considerably higher blade loading without obtaining excessive local Mach numbers on the blades. With conventional blading, however the blade loading is limited by the early stalling of the blades.
The situation can be somewhat improved by the use of blades of high camber, but the gain is limited and the useful range of angles of attack may be reduced. Some further slight increase in pressure ratio can be obtained by the use of solidities higher than conventional limits of about 1.2, but the gain is generally obtained with some drop in efficiency.
A definitely greater increase in loading and stage pressure ratio should be possible through the use of boundary-layer control on the rotor, stator blades and hub and tip endwalls. The results from isolated airfoils indicate that there should be no difficulty in doubling the loading obtainable without boundary-layer control with a corresponding increase in pressure ratio. The effect of boundary-layer control on the stage efficiency is less easy to evaluate than its effect on stage pressure ratio.
The profile drag-lift ratio should be decreased because of the large increase in lift coefficient possible without boundary-layer separation and because of the decreased profile drag resulting from reduced boundary-layer thickness behind the control slot or porous structure. In addition, some improvement in efficiency might be expected from the fact that, for a given drag-lift ratio, the velocity diagram theoretically most favorable to high profile efficiency (symmetrical diagram with axial velocity equal to one-half rotor-blade velocity), can be approached more closely throughout a multistage compressor when a high stage pressure ratio is obtained by use of boundary-layer control on both rotor and stator blades. The effect is generally obtained with conventional blades by varying the axial velocity to give a constant Mach number entering all blade rows.
The boundary-layer control when applied at critical points of the blades and the casing, allows for positively action on the secondary-flow losses leading to a consistent reduction of the overall losses of the stages.
In addition to the effect on internal aerodynamic efficiency, the power required for supplying the boundary-layer-control air must be considered in evaluating the over-all efficiency of the machine. Because of this pumping loss, it appears desirable to limit the boundary-layer control to the later stages where the largest gains are possible.
In relation to the turbine blade performance, the boundary layer control appears to have useful applications in conjunction with turbine blade cooling.
One of the most effective methods of cooling the trailing edge region of turbine blades is by ejecting cooling air at or near the trailing edge of the blade. This ejected air can be used at the same time as an effective method of boundary layer control for increasing the blade loading and thereby reducing the total blade area for a given power output. The reduction in blade surface may, in turn, be expected to reduce the amount of cooling required to maintain a given blade temperature.
A further application of the BLC has been made for turbines requiring very high specific work with limited rotor blade speed, where negative reaction may be required. The flow through the turbine rotor is then similar to that through a typical compressor rotor and, if the blade loading is to be high, boundary layer control may be required to prevent stalling of the blade. In this case, as in the more usual case, boundary layer control by injection can effectively be used in conjunction with blade cooling.
BLC may well be applied to advantage to fluid dynamic behaviour on the end walls and the casing of the turbo engine and could be successfully used when such extracted working fluid is in turn routed to cooling systems.
The purpose of the present invention is to define a method of BLC capable of limiting the flow rate fraction used to obtain such an interaction with the wall boundary layer of the component at its maximum extent, while avoiding negative effects on the thermo-mechanical strength and other technological constraints.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method of boundary layer control of a structural element in a fluid stream which includes the following operations:
providing in such structural element at least one region equipped with a microporous structure by an electroforming technique;
having a fluid stream flow through the external surface of the at least one region, inwards or outwards with respect to the environment in which that element is placed.
The structural element is given an intrinsic BLC function by means of a structural porous matrix which carries out the suction or effusion of fluids. In general, this intrinsic function can be obtained by equipping the structural element (airfoil, wing, blade, casing, etc.) with a carrying structure or, alternately with a lining consisting of one or more inserts with micro-holes obtained by means of an electroforming technique.
In addition suction or injection by means of porous walls may be used in transonic flows for the purpose of canceling or attenuating flow disturbances that ordinarily reflect from solid boundaries. With a porous wall, a selected amount of suction can produce cancellation over a range of incident waves and Mach numbers which otherwise would result in reflections. Again, the use of porous material, for a given aerodynamic performance, allows one to limit appreciably the fluid mass flows being supplied.
In practice the invention makes available a BLC method for a structural element, for instance a wing airfoil, which makes use of a microporous structure that, because of the very high density of the micropores, determines a fluid dynamic behaviour of the material which is close to that of a transpiration (sweating) wall.
The fabrication procedure to be used is based on a controlled electrolytic deposition method and is considerably simpler than the traditional fabrication methods (melting, moulding, machine tool processing) for known perforated structures; from the technological point of view, moreover, it makes possible solutions that cannot be obtained by means of these state-of-the-art techniques, a case in point being the possibility of extracting air from the surface of a body in a continuous manner over an extended surface portion.
Even though other and less conventional fabrication techniques employed in this and related sectors for the production of perforated elements intended for boundary layer control functions, includingxe2x80x94among othersxe2x80x94the use of electrically welded or sintered grids or holed plates, make it possible to obtain better results in terms of thermal performance and enhanced resistance to oxidation and corrosion phenomena, they have brought to the fore problems deriving from the clogging of the holes associated with the use of dirty fuels or unfiltered working fluids. A not by any means negligible contribution to this clogging phenomenon is caused by the very rough surface of the perforated elements fabricated in such manner.
The present invention is deemed to be capable of appreciably increasing the performance limits typical of the aforesaid known solutions, first and foremost thanks to the extreme lightness that can be obtained due to the very high surface density of the microholes, secondly thanks to the surface roughness of the material, which micrometer measurements show to be greatly reduced, and finally because the fabrication technique allows for control of the sucked or withdrawn quantities of fluid by locally adjusting the permeability of the wall.
The permeability is a fabrication parameter which can be locally managed through the density of the holes, their diameter and the thickness of the wall. In the specific case of turbo engine blades, this effect may be obtained on either rotor blades or vanes and generally on platforms, end walls and casing.
Basically the principal advantages obtainable by means of the BLC method subject of the invention can be summarized as follows:
the use of a highly porous material leads to a considerable reduction in weight of the component which is employed, thereby reducing stresses;
the use of a highly porous material, as far as the boundary layer control is concerned leads to a considerable increase in the aerodynamic performance of the component;
in a multistage compressor, the number of stages necessary to obtain a given pressure ratio is considerably reduced, thereby dramatically reducing the weight and the length of travel through the machine;
the turbo engine or aircraft/automotive component made of electroformed porous material makes available self carrying structures equipped with the desired location, extent and permeability of effusing regions.
the provision of a porous wall, rather than slits, allow continuous suction or injection to be performed over a large part of the component, leading to a much more effective boundary layer control, and avoiding the jet effect of the usual perforated structures;
the permeability of the wall, required to obtain a desired suction or ejecting effect, can be adjusted according to the design tasks;
the air consumption becomes quite low, thus reducing the work of the supplying compressor;
component boundary layer control can be very readily obtained even in zones that have always been associated with difficulties of a technological nature during manufacture and machining;
in the case of injection, the surface and the body of the component are maintained below the limiting temperatures for viscous flow that lead to a drastic reduction of the strength and structural integrity characteristics;
in case of injection, the solid and liquid particulate matter present in the working fluid is deflected more efficaciously by the surface air film, thus forestalling such phenomena as erosion, deposition and sulphur attack on of the surface;
in the case of injection the surface temperature of the component is lowered below the threshold of hot corrosion and surface oxidation is controlled to within acceptable limits.